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Speakers CornerAir your opinion on current world affairs. A forum for civil discussion and exchange of ideas. No flaming or abuse allowed. All posts should include your opinion on the subject, not your opinion of the member posting.

^Tell you what would get me interested?. There are standard fuel consumption tests that manufactures have to use to obtain their fuel consumption figures. Devise a trial where a number of cars to used with and without the hydrogen generators; where risks of experimental biases, such as engine tuning, have been managed out of the equation. show a statically significant change is fuel consumption and I will be very interested.

Of course it may be possible to separate H2 and O in water this way. That can be done in many ways, even that of ENT. There is nothing new in it. But you start with putting expensive electric energy in. That makes the endproduct expensive.
The laws of physics prohibit that the produced H2 contains more energy than the microwave energy put into the process. Anybody claiming othewise is either lying or excessively stupid.

^^
To be honest Carrabow, I haven't done more than give it a quick look, but I will sit down and check it out in a few hours and let you know. Cool?

That's all up to you. I will put my 2 cents in this. For a long time I have been a firm believer the the oil companies and the auto makers have been sticking it up our asses for a long time. This also falls along the lines with computer technology, propulsion systems, medical advancements and alternative fuels. You don't have take the blinders off to figure it out. Tesla was up to something along time ago and people thought he was a loon.

Of course it may be possible to separate H2 and O in water this way. That can be done in many ways, even that of ENT. There is nothing new in it. But you start with putting expensive electric energy in. That makes the endproduct expensive.
The laws of physics prohibit that the produced H2 contains more energy than the microwave energy put into the process. Anybody claiming othewise is either lying or excessively stupid.

I have a question that you may be able to answer. All of our applied sciences are based off what we do here on earth in gravity. What would happen in zero G?

I have a question that you may be able to answer. All of our applied sciences are based off what we do here on earth in gravity. What would happen in zero G?

Gravity does not figure in the laws of thermodynamics that determine that energy cannot be produced or lost, only converted.

The part with energy cannot be lost needs some explanation with an example. You want to convert electricity into H2. Doing so you incur a loss. Not all of the electric energy is converted to H2. But the energy "lost" is only lost for your intent of producing H2. It still exists in the form of heat.

But I should put a third option in my earlier claim. A person would be

a liar,

excessively stupid

or maybe just ignorant of the underlying science and has fallen for a liar. That would not mean a person is stupid. Liars can be very convincing.

We have solar and geothermal (convert this to steam and run it to a turbine) technology and in certain regions we can make lots of hydrogen. I guess we just have to put our hearts as a society into it.

We have solar and geothermal (convert this to steam and run it to a turbine) technology and in certain regions we can make lots of hydrogen. I guess we just have to put our hearts as a society into it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carrabow

Hydroelectric harnessing wind and waves There are lots of renewable sources, it will just take an initial investment.

Absolutely, I agree.

I believe though that we will find a better way through harnessing biomass from algae or some other process. That would be better because we need less steps of transformation and incur less loss and cost. Also biomass can replace oil as a raw material for the chemical industry.

If I am wrong it can be done as you mentioned. But as hydrogen is not as easily stored and used I guess we may use produced H2 in the Sabatier process or some similar process to procude methane (and water) which can be easier handled and better used as a fuel.

We have solar and geothermal (convert this to steam and run it to a turbine) technology and in certain regions we can make lots of hydrogen. I guess we just have to put our hearts as a society into it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carrabow

Hydroelectric harnessing wind and waves There are lots of renewable sources, it will just take an initial investment.

Absolutely, I agree.

I believe though that we will find a better way through harnessing biomass from algae or some other process. That would be better because we need less steps of transformation and incur less loss and cost. Also biomass can replace oil as a raw material for the chemical industry.

If I am wrong it can be done as you mentioned. But as hydrogen is not as easily stored and used I guess we may use produced H2 in the Sabatier process or some similar process to procude methane (and water) which can be easier handled and better used as a fuel.

Sabatier reaction CO2 + 4H2 → CH4 + 2H2O

Well, if we invest in our childrens future by means of science, think outside the box and develope better technologies. Anything is possible. All I know how to do is fix stuff, but I do read up on all kinds of things so I can understand them better. I am happy my son is taking an active interest in science and I will continue to support that.

All breakthrough advances in knowledge have been achieved through people thinking outside of the square.
The same goes for hydrogen power.
The basic technology is more than 100 years old, and all backyard tech. used in developing these systems are largely based on earlier experiments by others.

Here is a rather lengthy article on an early Argentinian proposal and reasoning concerning hydrogen power and it's relationship to other alternative energy sources.

The article also draws attention to how the oil economy interacts with renewable energy economics.

Hydrogen is easily stored in standard gas cylinders, and is transported that way, normally.
Hydrogen alone is non-explosive, and a leaking hydrogen cylinder is also potentially non-explosive, providing oxygen does not enter the cylinder as the hydrogen volume and pressure in the cylinder decreases.

Hydrogen may also be stored cold by passing it through cylinders of ferrous hydride, which becomes ferrous hydrate.
This in turn can be induced to release the trapped hydogen in the hydrate by warming, leaving behind ferrous hydride, once more.

Other alloys also posess this wuality, and the link below gives a description of the process.

The statement should read, "we have never attempted to find new ways to store hydrogen because it would infringe on the oil money".

Not true. Extensive research has gone into it for many decades. I have read an extensive study on it back in the 70ties and followed the technology since then. A H2 based economy is possible, no doubt. All required technologies have been developed and used in the chemical industry for many decades. But despite all efforts it is not very suitable for cars because of the restrictions of storage methods.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carrabow

They do it for Saturn V rockets...WTF?

Rockets are a very special case. Cryogenic H2 is used extensively in the space industry. But Cryogenic H2 is liquid only at a temperature of -259.2 °C that is 14°K. It is an energy consuming process to cool it down that far and it is impossible to keep it at this temperature for long. A rocket sitting on the launch pad loses H2 due to warming every minute. With rockets you can do that because it is an expensive technology anyway and the advantages outstrip the drawbacks.

The same does not apply to cars. In cars the disadvantages are far greater. Keep your car fueled up over night and you lose much of your tank content if you use liquid H2.

The second method is storage in gas bottles under pressure. That is the way they store it for welding. Those bottles are extremely heavy and the energy content is very limited compared to conventional fuels. The weight drives the fuel economy down and limits the range.

The third methods is storing the H2 in metal hydrides. The tanks are bulky and expensive. The capacity also limited and you need to heat them up after a stop because they release their content only when hot enough. Not a problem while driving because you can use the engine losses to heat the fuel but it delays the start process and you need to put energy in to get started. It is also a very slow process to fill them up.

So all three possible methods have serious drawbacks in every day use for cars. Liquid can probably be used for buses that run all day long and are empty over night. As I mentioned before it is probably much more economical to convert H2 into hydrocarbons for running cars and use existing infrastructure.

Storing hydrogen in metal hydrides as described in the article linked to above, post # 71
has been a practice in use since the 1980s.

Turning H2 into hydrocarbons defeats the purpose of using a clean, renewable fuel source, and the cost of the process is far higher than simple electrolysis of water.
There is also the added cost of the carbon footprint incurred in that process.

There are no serious drawbacks in the storage methods you've described, any such are minimal.

The only two serious drawbacks in the whole future of hydrogen power is firstly the mindset of the public, who are largely unaware of the huge potential in hydrogen power, and secondly, the opposition of the petro/gas/diese/oil industry.